‘He’s proving everybody wrong:’ Alec Pierce’s career day a bright spot in Colts’ loss to Jaguars
For the first 54 minutes of the Colts’ Week 5 matchup against the Jacksonville Jaguars, Alec Pierce waited in the wings.
The wide receiver lined up where he should, executed the routes he was supposed to and distracted the Jaguars’ secondary as necessary.
But he was never targeted.
Backup quarterback Joe Flacco was at the helm of the Colts’ offense – Anthony Richardson (oblique) was ruled out Sunday morning – and came into Sunday’s game with a career average of 6.8 yards per pass attempt. Pierce led the league with an average of 23.4 yards per catch through the Colts’ first four games of the season; he wasn’t always going to be Flacco’s primary target. But it was also the Jaguars’ defense that kept Pierce from getting involved earlier – the coverage simply didn’t allow for many deep throws.
With just over five minutes left in the fourth quarter, the Colts trailed 34-20. Their offense had been stifled time and time again, unable to get more than a couple yards per play. They needed an explosive play to get back into the game, and they needed it right away.
Flacco had no doubts about who he was going to throw the ball to.
“I think he’s a hell of a player,” Flacco said of Pierce. “I was actually kind of feeling bad, like ‘Man, we got to get him involved in this game, we’ve got to start getting him involved in these games, like how can we do that?’ And then boom, he makes an awesome catch on the sideline and then things just start rolling.”
Pierce’s first catch of the afternoon was a leaping, heart-stopping reception in which the wide receiver jumped in the air, cleared his defender and tipped the football with his left hand so he could then grab it with his right hand as he came back down to earth, landing on his back near the sidelines.
Oh, and the one-handed catch came after Pierce sprinted 24 yards downfield.
“Joe just threw it up, gave me a chance, and I kind of just popped it up in the air to myself,” Pierce said, smiling. “Played a little volleyball and made a catch.”
Pierce played volleyball in high school, and the wide receiver’s vertical has been one of the things that has made it so difficult for opponents to defend him. It’s also one of the things the Colts like so much about him. After all, his 41-inch vertical at the 2022 NFL Combine was hard to miss.
“It’s huge,” head coach Shane Steichen said. “Obviously that catch he made, that vertical jump to get it and catch that ball was huge. He’s doing a hell of a job for us.”
